"At the end of the day, everything comes down to execution," Stidham said. "Whether if it's on me or wherever it is, it always starts with me because I'm the one player that gets the ball every single play. So I need to execute a lot better and put our guys in situations to make more plays."

At the game's outset, it appeared as thought Stidham was going to keep his hot streak alive in the thick Baton Rouge air. He got off to another strong start as Auburn put together its best first-half performance on the road against LSU and jumped out to a 20-0 lead.

Stidham completed six of his first eight passes for 144 yards and a touchdown. He had completions of 49, 52 and 25 yards during that stretch. The 49-yarder resulted in Auburn's first touchdown of the game and a 10-0 lead after Will Hastings got behind the LSU secondary on a double-move. The 52-yarder came on a tunnel screen to Ryan Davis, and the 25-yarder came on a near-perfect over-the-shoulder throw to Darius Slayton on third-and-9 down the right sideline.

Stidham and Auburn appeared to be cruising and well on their way to snapping the program's dubious streak of defeats in Death Valley.

Things took a sharp turn from there.

Stidham completed just three of his final 18 passes for a total of 21 yards, including just 1-of-12 for 0 yards to end the game. His long completion during that final stretch came on a swing pass to running back Devan Barrett in the flat late in the fourth quarter, but Barrett was cut down at the line of scrimmage.

"He played like we did as an offense: had a strong start and we all faded down the stretch," running back Kerryon Johnson said of Stidham.

It was far from the type of performance people came to expect from Stidham, who entered the game as the SEC's most efficient passer and 13th in the nation in that category. Stidham's performance was hindered by some peculiar play-calling after the quick start, including a lack of short-to-intermediate routes for receivers, as well as an inability to convert on third downs.

Stidham was 3-of-11 passing for 83 yards and a sack on third downs, but only two of those completions converted the first down--the 52-yarder to Davis and the 25-yarder to Slayton early in the game. After that, Stidham was 1-for-9 on third downs, with the lone completion a 6-yard pass to Hastings on third-and-7. Auburn's drive stayed alive thanks to a roughing the passer penalty at the end of the play.

While Stidham put the onus on himself, the quarterback shouldn't own all the blame for the rocky passing performance. For the handful of impressive plays Auburn's receiving corps made, the unit also had several costly drops, including a brutal third-down drop by Slayton on the third-down play that preceded D.J. Chark's game-changing punt return touchdown.

"I thought Jarrett did a solid job, and there was a couple big drops toward the end," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "Jarrett's a warrior, and he was under duress some, but I thought he played fine."

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.